


Whispers in the Dark

by englandwouldfalljohn



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: 17th Century, AKA I Made Stuff Up, All Smut is Soft and Loving, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, And I Want You To Be Ok, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Artistic Liberties, BAMF Aziraphale, Battle of Kinsale, Because I love my readers, Blood and Violence, But I’d Rather Be Safe, Creation of The Garden of Eden, Creation of the universe, Deus Ex Fuckina, Friends to Lovers, Fulda Witch Trials, Gabriel is a dickhead, Globe Theatre Era, Happy Ending, Historical Inaccuracy, I promise, IDK If This Really Warrants the Graphic Violence Warning, M/M, Memories, Not the MCs Though, Oral Sex, References to Sex Work, Safe Sane and Consensual, Sex Positive, Smut, Sorry My Tags Are Out of Order, Switching, Tags Are Hard, War in Heaven (Good Omens), Whump, crowley is kokabiel, sad wanking, soft smut
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:40:34
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 10
Words: 17,641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28483281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/englandwouldfalljohn/pseuds/englandwouldfalljohn
Summary: After Aziraphale and Crowley find a night of forbidden romance, Crowley’s disappearance forces them into two separate wars. If they manage to fight their way back to each other, what will it mean for their eternal souls?
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 32
Kudos: 32





	1. Aziraphale

**Author's Note:**

  * For [notjustmom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notjustmom/gifts).



> For [notjustmom](https://archiveofourown.org/users/notjustmom/pseuds/notjustmom), who requested something normal and ended up getting this... so sorry!
> 
> Beta by the brilliant MrsNoggin—all remaining mistakes and liberties taken are my own.
> 
> Special thanks to [EchoSilverWolf](%E2%80%9C) for being the perfect sounding board and brainstorming partner.

Thick black paper perched smugly against the demure threshold, as ostentatious as the person who had clearly left it there. Aziraphale bent slowly onto one knee, reaching to collect the envelope as though it were a precious black pearl in his ocean of white-washed indulgences. He slipped it into an inner pocket, savouring its existence while he entered his rooms to prepare a simple meal. The delicious porridge and hearty bread would suffice this evening, travel-worn as he was from his jaunt to the Highlands. After pouring out a third mug of ale, he settled back into his favorite chair and slid a single fingertip across the seal of the letter, enjoying the tingle that came with the minor miracle. Tight, honest penmanship crossed the page in uneven lines:

_ Tonight I do but grudgingly concede _

_ A point which points to that I should yet hide  _

_ In telling so, I do lament my speed  _

_ Though ever I, a man of wounded pride  _

_ By this, please find my humblest request—  _

_ The presence at the present I hath made  _

_ Of one, oh whether whimsy or behest,  _

_ May bid me dance as if I were his slave  _

_ If you should bear the freedom of an hour  _

_ Allow this humble soul to soldier out  _

_ The castle of the Dane is no less dour  _

_ But of your blessed smile, I have no doubt  _

_ With tender hand, I offer you this plea:  _

_ Forget yourself! Come see the play with me?  _

Aziraphale scrambled in his desk for a pen, whipping out a blotter with the other hand. An avalanche of mundane correspondence about payments for brogues and other such things went tumbling down to the floor as he scrawled out a reply.

_ Methinks the play’s the thing, wherein you’ll catch the- _

‘That doesn’t even rhyme, angel.’ 

Up jerked Aziraphale’s wrist and down went the bottle of ink. Black velvet appeared at his elbow, capping legs that went on fathoms in dark nylon. Crowley’s smirk was audible—he must’ve known just what effect his presence would have on the poor besotted Aziraphale. 

‘You don’t know what I was going to write,’ he pouted, dabbing at the growing spot on his sleeve with a beer-wet cloth. He had no idea how to remove stains, but this seemed as good an attempt as any. The fact that the black-on-white was rapidly turning to green did not bode well, however, and his bottom lip jutted out impossibly further. 

‘Oh, for Hell’s sake, angel, let me,’ Crowley tutted. The snap of his fingers cut sharply through the noise trundling up from the avenue below, and two pairs of keen eyes watched, satisfied, as particles dissociated themselves and floated out of minuscule cracks in the window jamb. ‘Now that’s settled, are you coming tonight?’

‘Pick me up at six, as they say.’ Aziraphale couldn’t hold back a hopelessly eager wiggle of his shoulders. 

‘Who says that?’ The challenge was issued around a small white fang, and Aziraphale made a mental note to become more emotionally reserved. He was supposed to be an agent of Heaven, he should be dignified. At least, he should appear to be.

‘Wh- th- they!’ He gestured widely. ‘They do say it! Don’t they?’ Aziraphale’s brow knitted and his fingers twined together. Oh, sod it all.

‘Sure they do, angel. See you at six.’

After his clearly-not-a-nemesis swished out the front chamber door, Aziraphale slumped down, face in his hands. Really, it was quite dreadful. This attachment to a demon, of all creatures, was unseemly. And his emotional upheaval at the click of that clever tongue wasn’t even the worst bit. It was what he imagined that tongue  _ doing _ every time they met that was the larger issue. 

And a large issue it was, what with the spontaneous effort his damnable corporation made in Crowley’s presence. No. NO. It had to stop; it would stop. After the play. Which he was attending only because Crowley had asked so very nicely and because he was thrilled to see William succeed. Anyway, wouldn’t trade the world for the tickets he was certain would be in the most perfect spot in the theatre. But then, when the evening was behind him, it would be done.

It would.

***

It wasn’t. By the time they arrived at the theatre, Aziraphale was hopelessly enthralled by every sarcastic witticism that fell from Crowley’s lips. The stalls were packed to overflowing, and he was forced (well, he’d say forced) to lean precariously close to comment on the job well done. 

‘Oh yeah?’ came a puckish waggle of eyebrows. ‘Careful, angel. Next thing, you’ll be  _ tempting me _ to another oyster dinner.’

‘Yes, well, I- I mean, no I shouldn’t think that- Oh! The curtain is opening!’ Aziraphale thought he had never been more grateful for the start of a show in his life. That is, until he heard, ‘More’s the pity,’ whispered not at all discreetly beside him. 

The crowd gasped and guffawed, and Aziraphale found himself swept gleefully along for the ride. The show was marvelous, skull and all, and afterward even Crowley admitted how well Ophelia played her madness. They had been meandering through London, lost in debate over the motivations of the queen, when Aziraphale rolled himself nimbly back into a narrow alley, pulling Crowley up against him. 

‘You’ve already thanked me for the tickets, angel, there’s no need to-‘

‘Shh! No. What?!’ His head whipped around, grazing Crowley’s nose with his own in the dank, cramped space. ‘Oh no, Heaven’s no! I wouldn’t dare to… presume… no! I saw someone. On the street.’

‘That does tend to happen once in awhile…’ Crowley teased, just a bit closer than necessary to Aziraphale’s ear. 

‘Hmm… no. No! You don’t understand!’ He peeked out around the corner in the direction they’d been heading and spotted the same figure browsing a fruit stall, dressed head to toe in powder blue. A beard tickled his cheek as Crowley leaned out beside him to see what all the fuss was. 

‘Ahh,  _ that _ someone. Yes, ok, fair enough. Has he come for you, d’you think?’ The tinge of worry in his voice was wonderfully endearing, and Aziraphale chided himself for not finding it unwelcome. 

‘If he were here for me, he’d have found me. No, this is just an unfortunate coincidence. You know,’ he sized up the alley’s far end, ‘if we cut through here to the next thoroughfare, my rooms are only a short walk.’

‘Slinking down a dark alley with a known degenerate? I like your new style. Next thing, you’ll be inviting me up,’ Crowley smirked. He  _ was _ handsome when he smirked. 

‘Well, just to prove your intimations wrong—yes. I am inviting you up. We’ll have tea and biscuits and a nice quiet evening between associates.’

‘Associates? Is that what they’re calling it these days?’

‘Oh hush, you. And keep moving, I can feel the filth clinging to me with every step.’

Crowley opened his mouth, but at a not-quite-actually withering look from Aziraphale, snapped it shut again. 

They gained their destination in companionable silence, neither commenting on the wine replacing the aforementioned cup of tea. One glass, and they were chatting happily about the production they’d seen that evening. Three glasses, and they were gossiping about King Arthur. Three bottles, and the air around them sparked with an all too human anticipation. Aziraphale was vaguely aware that he had shifted to the edge of his seat, knees bumping those of the figure splayed in front of him. Every touch was a poke from a fire-hot iron, burning through his clothes and setting his blood aflame. He wouldn’t have been surprised to find the white fabric singed with demonic ash, but instead of brimstone, notes of cinnamon and brown sugar wafted in the air. 

‘Is that you?’ he asked, leaning precariously forward and giving a great sniff at the space between their bodies. 

‘’S what me?’ Crowley chuckled into his glass, ignoring their proximity. 

‘That… that that… smell. Like freshly baked scones.’ Aziraphale closed his eyes, licking his lips hungrily. It took an extra beat to open them again, and the flush rising on Crowley’s face pushed him into a half-measure of sobriety. 

‘Oh, errrr… you, uh… you can smell that… then.’ Crowley had set his glass on a side table and was toying with the stem. 

‘Well, of course I can smell it, my dear. It’s like a baker’s shop at sun-up! So it is you, then? Why can’t I always smell it? Is it some sort of cologne?’

‘Errr, no… it’s… it’s just…’

Aziraphale placed his glass roughly on the rug, leaning his elbows onto his knees and bringing them far closer than he had any right to. 

‘Angel, if you must know, it’s… the effort. Whenever it… happens. This scent just sort of...myeurghhhaccompanies.’

‘Ohh.’ And then a split second later, ‘OHHHHH! Oh, you mean to say that you…  _ now _ … with… well, I mean, I don’t mean to say with me as in “with me,” but you know what I-’

‘Yes, angel,’ Crowley shifted uncomfortably on the settee. ‘With you.’

Aziraphale felt a terrible pang of guilt at exposing him so thoroughly, and determined that fair was fair. 

‘When mine… does…  _ that… _ it smells of-

‘Vanilla.’

Aziraphale’s eyes blew wide, lips parting just enough to let slip the illusion of sound. Crowley hung his head now, the sound of a wine bottle refilling breaking the silence. 

‘And sandalwood. Yeah… I… listen, I’m sorry. I know I’m meant to be a demon, but you’d’ve noticed I’m not a particularly good one and-’

The end of his apology slid, Cabernet smooth, against Aziraphale’s tongue. Firm thighs embraced a slim waist as the angel eased himself across the scant gap between them. Layers of cotton and brocade melted away, leaving two warm bodies pressed delicately together. Crowley’s hands trailed lightly over his arms, down his back as though he were afraid too much pressure could cause Aziraphale to break. Their lips spoke silently of their times apart, brushing so gently, not wanting to miss a single detail. 

Aziraphale didn’t notice the cold embers in the fireplace springing to life as Crowley eased him toward the floor, the way they cracked and jumped as Aziraphale sucked Crowley’s tongue into his mouth, gripping nimble hips and urging him into more friction. He didn’t feel the sweat mingling between their bodies, or care whether the neighbors might hear the sounds of furniture being displaced as righteousness wrestled with desire. All he knew was the absolute delight, the sheer weightlessness of being in the right arms after millennia of loneliness. Aziraphale knew that, and the sound of his holy name upon Crowley’s lips as the tidal wave took them both. 

And in the avenue, where the sun had only recently sunk beneath the horizon, Gabriel knew it, too.


	2. Aziraphale

Aziraphale shivered. On the periphery of his waking mind, he was aware of the draft in the room, and of being cold. While he tried to convince himself to go in search of a blanket, a muffled rustling brought the rest of his mind online. Waves of warm air washed over his naked body, almost as if someone were fanning the heat from the fire over him.

Feathers settled, hot and heavy, over his shoulders, the swell of his backside, the tender skin at the back of his knees. Aziraphale shivered again, but not for want of cover. He turned with an aching slowness and slipped his hand along the carpet, inching over the fibres of lost years, until his fingertips pressed against a burning hot chest. The wing laying across him shifted, allowing Aziraphale’s body to close the distance. The scent of cinnamon overwhelmed his senses and he claimed Crowley’s mouth. Wine-stained desperation had become something deeper in the dark. One firm hand grasped a length of hair, twisting fingers in as if he never intended to let go. The other stroked down a gorgeously exposed neck, over a slim shoulder, to pluck at a rapidly peaking nipple. Crowley let go a stuttering breath in his ear, and his hand sank lower, over a sunken abdomen, and down between two taut thighs. One minor miracle and Aziraphale was reaching a place more forbidden than the central orchard of Eden, sliding one, two fingers into his hereditary enemy, his oldest friend.

He worked carefully, tenderly, until Crowley was shaking and writhing beneath him with every swipe of that perfectly designed bundle of nerves within. Golden eyes pled for him to give more—more friction, more fullness, more of himself. Watching the creature he adored more than any other on Earth begging without a word brought Aziraphale to the brink. Crowley’s whine at the loss of his hand brought a mixture of heartbreak and arousal, and in that moment, he would have forsaken Heaven itself to give him what he needed. 

A mass of black feathers rolled out flat against the floor as Aziraphale positioned himself above the slight body of his love. The shadows thrown in the firelight made him look delicate, and Aziraphale wanted for all the world to protect him from the worst in God and man. He closed his eyes, let his lips find Crowley’s wholly unnecessary and perfectly throbbing carotid artery, and pushed into his tight, hot body. Aziraphale’s nerves were firing faster than the speed of light, and when Crowley’s slender fingers pressed into his back, he began to thrust with a vigor he hadn’t previously known he possessed. 

It might have been an eternity, or it might have been five minutes, but as Crowley’s body clenched around him, and Aziraphale’s teeth sunk into his shoulder to stifle a scream, he was certain—absolutely certain—that behind closed eyes, he witnessed the birth of a star. 

***

‘Wake up, Sunshine.’

It was… wrong. The voice, the tone, the harsh mid-morning light slanting through the window. Aziraphale reached out for a blanket, for Crowley, for anything warm and lovely to wrap around himself and still his mounting anxiety. 

‘You’re a fucking celestial being, conjure up some clothing and a scrap of dignity. I’m waiting.’

Oh.  _ Oh. Oh no.  _

Aziraphale scrambled awkwardly to his feet, covering himself with the first miracle he could muster and wishing to Heaven that he had awoken sooner. The only thing for which he was grateful was the absence of Crowley, who had clearly slipped out sometime in the night. A lump rose in his throat at the image of that beautiful form disentangling himself from a sleeping Aziraphale, dressing with an extranatural quiet, and removing himself so as not to… discuss what had happened between them? A whimper escaped him when the realization hit that Crowley, his beloved Crowley, might have been removing himself from more than the possibility of them being found out. He may have been running away from Aziraphale himself. What if he never saw him again? What if he had gambled everything and lost?

‘Today, Aziraphale.’ Gabriel was losing his patience, which was thin on the ground to begin with these days. ‘We have a situation. The Irish are revolting.’

‘W- I don’t know that’s a very nice way to describe them. They may infuse their worship with a bit more of their  _ old ways _ than we would like, but revolting is a bit harsh,’ he protested, hoping his voice wasn’t pitched as high as it sounded in his head. 

‘What? No, you imbecile. Ireland is revolting against England. The war is still waging all across this wretched, damp little set of islands, and I need you to take care of some things.’

‘T-take care-oh! Yes, yes of course. A miracle here, a miracle there. Right as rain,’ he chirped, finally coming back to himself as he surreptitiously stoked the fire behind him with a quick flick of the wrist. ‘Who do you need me to speak with, hm?’

‘You misunderstand me. You’re a warrior, Aziraphale. A Guardian. You’re being sent into the field. There,’ Gabriel gestured to a new sheaf of paper on the table still cluttered with wine bottles from the evening before, ‘are your orders. And clean this mess up. A drunken angel isn’t doing anyone any good.’

‘Right. Yes. Of course,’ Aziraphale bowed his head and began clearing away the stark reminders of his gloriously self-indulgent heartbreak. What had he been thinking? What had  _ Crowley _ been thinking? Oh, there was no use wringing his hands like a besotted maiden. He’d go off to, er, wherever it was he was being sent, get the job done with, then somehow—he would cross that bridge when he came to it—find Crowley and sort this all out. Yes. That would do, that would be fine. He had just lifted the paperwork and turned to sit when-

‘Shame about the demon.’ The Archangel’s face twisted into an expression only a gargoyle would term a smile. ‘Bye, then.’ 

And he was gone, the cold wind in his wake clattering the shutters against the window. Aziraphale shuddered alike, the sweat prickling at the back of his neck negating the heat from the fire. Gabriel couldn’t have meant… He absent-mindedly set the sheaf of papers back on the table. Tidying, that would help. Always had done. The equation of cleanliness with godliness was more than a pushy adage, he had found. Aziraphale began moving about the place, removing half-refilled wine bottles and tucking his reading into neat little stacks. He grabbed up the quilt where it had fallen to the floor when they—anyway, he shook it out and began to fold it when a stain on the carpet caught his attention.

No, not a stain. A feather, as long as his forearm and so deep a black as to be almost purple. It might have fallen out during… what had occurred between them, during a removal of clothing or the extension of the appendage. It might’ve fallen out at any point in the night, like an eagle shedding its summer plumage. Aziraphale prayed desperately for this, though he knew well it wasn’t true. They were not like birds, their kind, nor like anything of this Earth. No corporeal realization of their forms could change the fact that their wings were as immortal as their spirits. The only way for this last vestige of Crowley—sweet, beloved Crowley—to be resting in his hand would be through considerable force. What power could have removed him, wings aloft, without waking Aziraphale from his deliciously innocuous slumber?

He couldn’t think of this now, couldn’t sort through all the possibilities (two, he knew) or their implications (myriad, he hoped). He had work to be getting on with. If Gabriel was truly aware of what had transpired between them—Aziraphale dared not risk that he wasn’t—any delay on his part could be seen as an extension of his dalliance. And if that dalliance by any chance constituted treason… no. He dare not consider that. And anyway, it mustn’t be; not if he was being handed an assignment. Surely a transgression of significant magnitude to warrant punishment (or worse, expulsion) would be met with orders for immediate recall. Yes, that must be the way of things. It must. 

Aziraphale knelt before his old wooden trunk. He had brought it from the Silk Road himself. The joins were fastened with yak hide leather, and the yellow-on-red flowers were beginning to fade. He would miss this piece, and wondered if he might risk imbuing it with a sort of detectable trace that would allow him to find it again one day. The feather clutched in his left hand suggested it was best that he not. 

He rummaged through the disarray of books, diaries of loose letters he had written without the intention to post, and odd bric-a-brac he’d collected at street sales since taking up these rooms. In short, the things he had gathered for some day. When a small canvas rucksack was finally shaken to the top of the trunk, he piled in one or two books, thought better of it, and added six or seven more. The diary, a bottle of very good wine (poor appearances be damned, this was the worst night of his life), and a writing journal with pen and ink pot completed the set. It was time to turn to his orders, to see where they had determined his intervention would be most useful. Or, perhaps, the least destructive. What if they knew about more than his evening of sin? What if they knew about the Arrangement?

But then again, it was only to be Ireland, wasn’t it? The charming Emerald Isle, yawning open slowly at daybreak, land of the lovely imagined fae and other mischievous creatures bent on trickery and self-preservation. Aziraphale knew only too well what simple realities had spawned such fancy in the minds of men, and he had always enjoyed his visits across the narrow sea before. 

He pushed Crowley out of his mind for the time being, not knowing where to begin his thoughts on that matter, and focused on the task at hand. Aziraphale was being directed to an inlet stronghold known as Kinsale. Best sense was to travel overland through Wales, then across the slip of the Irish Sea. Yes, that would do nicely. Afford him a bit of fresh air, extra time to think. How difficult could it be?

***

Snow. Bloody awful snow, falling across the midlands. And in October! What a wretched trip this was turning out to be. First was the coach out of London, sat beside an insufferable braggart and his eternally dissatisfied wife. Then came the wolves. He’d rather not recount that, even to himself. And finally, as they had crossed the mountains toward the sloping landscape of the country that vowels forgot, the snowfall began. 

He had manifested proper cloaks for himself behind a pub somewhere west of the Cotswolds, but it did nothing to solve the issue of the damp, nor the chill that ran into his bones and settled there, as if intending to stay the winter. Aziraphale longed for the mild coastal climate of his destination. There would be wind, no doubt, but if he set himself back a ways from the River Bandon, it could be almost pleasant. 

There was no news to be had on his journey, celestial or otherwise, and he kept apart in pubs and inns. Each evening, he selected a different tome to keep him company. He would stroke the spines, run his thumb along deckled edges, and inhale the dust of his increasingly distant London from the bindings. Then he would sit, with ale and bread or mutton stew, and stare blankly at the pages for hours. For the words grew meaningless before his longing eyes, distorted and wrong through tears that refused to fall. 

Aziraphale did not pray. He was too intimately entangled with the scene that had played out before his sleeping eyes to reach out to Her. Whatever had befallen Crowley, brave Crowley whose fate had been sealed for him when he had thrown in with the wrong lot, could only be terrible. Crowley had once joked about the persistence of brimstone, how the sting and stench of sulfur clung to your hair, your skin, your very being until you cried out with despair. Aziraphale now wondered: despair of what? Surely not the smell itself, for even the worst scent will grow innocuous over time. Despair of being marked? Of being… unlovable? Despair of the permanence, when all things save Heaven and Hell glory in their eventual demise? That, Aziraphale reflected, was indeed what made Earth, humanity, life itself worthwhile. It was the certainty of termination that conferred value. And where did that leave him, if not essentially valueless, except for his dealings with the mortal? Except for his dealings with…

The sea was calm, and the journey would be speedy. He would see Kinsale by the afternoon light. Aziraphale consulted his orders once more—defend the English hold, for reasons neither given nor requested. Miracles should be kept to a minimum, mimic human behaviour wherever possible. No women, no killing, no drinking. 

Aziraphale took a swig of wine from the bottle. Two out of three ain’t bad.


	3. Crowley

Crowley was blind. He must have been, for surrounding him was a vast expanse of nothingness. It was darker than black, deeper than space. It was… wrong. There was only one void, and he had come through it to the other side long ago. He knew he had, but somehow, he couldn’t  _ remember.  _ Crowley reached—his hand or his mind, he knew not which—into the nothing and retrieved… nothing. There was no edge of his memory at which to grasp, no tip of his tongue upon which a word could balance. He drew into himself, grateful that he still had a self to draw into, and listened. There was a faint rustling sound, familiar to the black box of his innermost mind. Though he desperately pleaded for it to remain secreted away, he felt it unfolding nonetheless. A metaphorical Pandora, doing her unholy work, seized upon the moment, releasing the terrifying knowledge of that vague assault on Crowley’s ears—it was nothing more than the sound of the passage of Time itself. 

There were only two planes of existence where Time passed immeasurably, where the beating of its wings could be heard echoing off the walls of immortality. Crowley had once learned how to drown it out, how to escape the scratch of its talons against his sanity. Why could he hear it now, then? What had changed?  _ Where was he?  _

Panic began to seep through the seams of him, flowing slow and thick like lava. He should be able to outpace it, but there was no place to turn. There was no  _ place _ at all. He attempted a deep breath, but where he thought perhaps his lungs should be, they simply were not. And he was noticing something else, something dreadful. 

Crowley was cold. Not the chill of winter on the continent, but a burning, bitter cold. The kind of cold laced with the seething hate of empty souls; the impossible cold at the center of a black hole, where all light has gone to die. The paradox sent him reeling. This horrible, evil cold was analogous to the ineffable balance of his own demonic existence—a creature built on the grace of God, with its very center of gravity ripped away, yet still standing only on the strength of that same God’s whim. Crowley knew the answer, now. There was only one place in the universe he could be. 

Crowley was in Hell.

This was not the ordinary realm of the demons and the damned, however. This was the freezing inferno of the outer keeps. The dimmest haze of memory had been lit within him, and he—whatever  _ he _ was at the moment—trembled violently as he guessed what was waiting for him when the darkness began to ease. Humans feared Cerberus or lakes of fire, but those brought only discomfort, if in the extreme. Crowley had known worse, and he feared he would know it again. It was not the body that was imprisoned in this icy hold, nothing so finite as that. Nor was it the mind, whatever that word actually meant. It was the spirit, the soul itself, which sensed in innumerable directions, which could rejoice or lament with such force as to consume the whole of Creation. This is what had been formed in Her image: the starving soul, reaching for its fill. 

The darkness wavered, warped around its edges. Crowley could feel it in what would have been his bones. It rippled slowly at first, creeping toward the centre of this place, this cell which both contained and did not contain him—which was not of him, and yet,  _ was _ him. As it drew closer, the momentum began to mount, stretching Crowley to his very boundaries, and sweeping inward as a ball of fire erupts from an exploding vehicle. The idea struck him, and he felt himself choke on the fragments of a memory, but there was no time, no time to recover what had almost been caught. It was coming now, the blaze of damnation ripping through his frozen world, twisting the core of the entity Crowley until reality stood on its head. 

There was a moment at the top, where the peace at the end of terror reigned, before it all came rushing back again. A fierce tide was being sucked out to sea and Crowley found himself scrabbling, clinging desperately to the apex, the eye of this vicious storm that was turning him inside-out until the rushing of Time, the tearing of the fabric that was him, came to a deafening halt. No heat, no cold, but no nothing either. Crowley stared down at himself, felt the boundlessness of himself in this space. He did not know what would happen, but he knew it was beginning.

And it did begin, with a light. Pulsing dimly, almost indistinguishable from the darkness, and filling him with the memory of a sensation—the final release from that wretched box of mythical woe. Hope. His tool, he remembered suddenly. Hope had been his tool. She had given it to him after his birth. A pang of longing struck Crowley at the thought of himself, a newly minted angel, with no eye toward the tragedy to come. Some might say she had not yet invited tragedy, or dissent, but that wasn’t quite true. It must have all been there, encapsulated in that pulsing light, waiting to one day plunge them back into the dark. 

She had taken bits of the light and called them in, the Architects, and one by one, She had handed it down. Her Own fingertips had brushed his eager palms, and She had pointed into one corner of Forever. That was to be his, and he would make it shine with all the hope that flowed through his being. How he had danced, weaving the starlight through the thick blackness that was so full of the readiness to become. How he had sung, his voice kissing the endless night, breath setting his star-children spinning on themselves and out into existence. When he had used all She had given him, he called for his Mother. She smiled gently as she passed among his creations, scattering stones and fragments of dust from a satchel as though it were nothing. 

Until she came to one star. One ordinary, yellow star, glowing on the arm of an ordinary spiral galaxy. She had beckoned to him then, drew him in close with Her warmth.  _ This star, _ she had said,  _ this sun, shall be different. As you are different. This sun shall bear my grace to a new world. _ She drew from Her satchel a single stone, and set it three paces from the star.  _ I shall give it a family, _ She said, and She placed other stones before and after it,  _ but this alone shall bear life. _ Her hand swept into the sun, then, drawing out plasma, which jumped and sputtered wildly in Her hand. She had commanded him to kneel, and he was not afraid. Into his adoring eyes, She poured the molten liquid. The gold colored his irises, and he was marked then—a shining beacon of creation even among his own kind. She had named him Kokabiel,  _ My Star, _ and he believed he was blessed.

In the ordinary course of extraordinary events, Kokabiel was sent onto that third stone, that planet She had dubbed Earth, along with the other Architects. He watched in wonder as mountains were raised, towering monuments to the endless sky. He stared in awe at the great swelling seas, shifting to the movements of the solitary moon. And finally, his time came to carve a mark onto the living world.

For days, he had roamed what seemed an intractable desert, its sands storming and swaying with the essence of the Earth. Growing weary of the sameness, one evening he laid down his body, admiring the gentle pulse of his own stars above. As the hours passed in quietude, he drifted off into a state of dreams—the first, he would come to find. Tickling at his imagination was a tender green something, fragile and alive, whispering to be set free. It filled his mind with a burst of colour, an overwhelming verdancy inspiring tears to flow over sharp features until he awoke, dust clinging to the precious moisture trickling from his eyes. The sands were cold beneath his bare feet, and a gentle wind stirred where the first morning light broke the grey-washed remains of night. It was Her, he realized. She was the giver of dreams, of light, of life. He performed no miracles except through Her gifts, and it would only be fitting that he should return Her favour with favour. 

Kokabiel lowered one knee to the warming ground, and turned his face to greet the rising sun. As he felt its blessed rays stealing the tracks of his tears, his eyes closed, and he flattened his palms against the Earth. It was not with a rumble or an upheaval that it happened, but rather, with the barest of tremors. Between his holy fingers the sands parted. Unfurling with a  _ crinkle-sigh _ of gentle tenacity, shoots and sprigs, blades of sweet grass and stalks of flowering plants spread out around him. A garden, an oasis in a world of dust and stone, where each brilliant living cell would turn itself to the dawn in silent worship. And at the centre, in the middle of this homage to Her, he raised up a magnificent tree, blooming brighter than the others, and hung all around with brilliant red fruit. 

When he had spent the last of his energy, Kokabiel collapsed in the centre of his creation, sated by his expression of devotion. As the final light dipped beneath the western horizon, footsteps stirred the grass at his head. Having no power left to raise his body, he nevertheless tried, but was met at once with a  _ hush hush.  _ She stepped forward and stroked the leaves of the fruit tree, nodding her approval once, before turning Her attention to its roots. He had not even blinked, yet there they appeared—small and solid, two of a kind. They were sleeping; She was gone. Somehow, he knew he must not be there when they woke, for his form would be far too awesome for such delicate eyes. He drew himself up, through what power of necessity as he could harness, and inched quietly toward the… wall. A wall was growing up, stone by stone, at the perimeter of his garden. Kokabiel traced over it with his hands until he found a place that had not yet set properly. He wriggled the stone free, and the one below it, and the one below that, and he slipped out into the night.

The following days on Earth passed with centuries in Heaven, time enough for Kokabiel to tend to the growth of each petal on each flower from his celestial station. He had learned the art of detail from the Morning Star, and enjoyed the loss of self that became greater with every moment spent coaxing his beloved children into eternal bloom. So enamoured did Kokabiel become with this middle path of the mind, this medi-tation, that he grew ignorant of the comings and goings of the garden itself. He was vaguely aware that four Principalities had been given human corporations and placed so as to guard the wall, though he knew not from what. There was a growing dissent among a faction of angels, this he knew well enough from comments made during Lucifer’s lectures to him on organization, but he could not shake the voice in his core which sang of Her wisdom and infallibility. Perhaps this was all in the ebb and flow of things, he thought, and let it pass by him like the stream running by his beloved apple tree. 


	4. Aziraphale

Aziraphale had not done battle in war-torn heaven, and his time with King Arthur had been more a lark than a proper mission. This, though—this was real. Humans were capable of terrible misdeeds, he had long known that. Watching them firsthand, though, being amongst their swords and shields when the banks of the river turned to rust with blood-mingled soil… it was like living in another world. This beautiful edge of a country desperately seeking sovereignty was being torn to shreds, and Aziraphale felt cursed to be enlisted as one doing the shredding. 

England was gaining ground, and Aziraphale would have given anything to quietly slip away up the river and leave them to finish the job. Unfortunately, his orders made clear that he was to remain until the battle had concluded. Decisive victory was the price of his relative freedom. 

Tonight, he was following orders from a captain closer to the ground, who had set him the task of loosing livestock from key Irish holds. He was to await a signal that the enemy sentries were rotating their shift, causing a blind spot by the paddocks. Aziraphale crouched behind a line of trees, clutching his winter cloak around himself and damning the climate for its steadfast dampness. Left alone for what he knew would be hours, he slipped a gloved hand beneath the outer layers of his vestige and felt for the outline of that singular token he carried on his person: Crowley’s feather. 

Thought by unwanted thought, his mind began to indulge itself. Crowley. Crowley had been there, warm and welcoming and gorgeously sated beside him. And then, hours later, he had not. The memory of Gabriel’s sneer sent a shockwave down his spine, and Aziraphale shivered violently. Had he seen what had happened, in the end? Had he been a party to it? Aziraphale didn’t suppose Gabriel had had a hand in Crowley’s  _ removal, _ otherwise he would not have been able to resist a more thorough gloat. It would have been good news, except that it pointed to a higher power than the archangel. 

A light winked red on the horizon, dragging Aziraphale from his wondering. It was time. He slipped across the dewy grass to the north gate of the sheep pen and made quick work of the fastenings. Only a few prods to the closest animals, and they were all filing out, wandering silently into the forest. Skirting the edges of the cleared lands, he came to the covered holds. Waking the slumbering cows and horses would likely disrupt his cover. One minor miracle would be forgiven if it progressed the cause. Out they fled, an unnatural silence cushioning their hooves, and the pigs followed shortly. Aziraphale slipped away into the trees to the west and circled back to camp. 

He made his report and was clapped on the back for a success his captain claimed only he could have managed, and was then sent back to his tent to sleep away the remaining hours until dawn. Rest was slow in coming, however. The actions he had taken that night, and every day and night since his docking alongside the English ships, made his stomach turn. Here were a people, invaded time and again, having their heritage burned and their culture pillaged, being forced to turn to a church that rejected them wholesale. Besieged now, they fought to the death for the freedom to self-govern, to self-identify, to live free on their own terms. And there stood Aziraphale, shoulder to shoulder, sword and axe, with those that denied and besieged them. 

Eating was out of the question, and drinking only did his head in quicker. At least this evening, he managed not to vomit from the injustice. Instead, he lay back, alone under his canvas, and imagined he could see the stars. Aziraphale had been born too late to see them formed, and they had always struck him as one of the great mysteries of creation. 

Unbidden, he recalled what he had seen in his final climactic moment with Crowley, before he had fallen into a fateful sleep by the hearth. Could it truly have been the beginning of one of those unearthly orbs, he wondered. His corporation responded rapidly, an eager effort manifesting despite his dour circumstances.  _ Crowley, _ he thought, absentmindedly reaching down, slipping his hand beneath his tunic and trousers.  _ Crowley,  _ running his hand over sensitive skin, rolling his fingers as he knew his forbidden love would do.  _ Crowley,  _ faster, harder, hips bucking up toward the sky, teeth sinking into his lower lip to stifle the moans threatening to give him away through the thin fabric of his tent. The deft fingers of his other hand slipped lower, sank into his body, making short work of this sinner’s prayer. Aziraphale found that spot within him that brought back the stars, and as he indulged in whispering Crowley’s name, bitter tears escaped from the prison of his eyes. His body wracked with pleasure and sorrow, shaking through his climax in a conflation of desperate emotions. 

“Where have you gone?” Aziraphale begged, his voice cracking in the darkness. He held loosely to his own body, afraid that releasing himself would allow his memories to slip away. His tears cooled rapidly on his temples, and he imagined them flowing over a scarlet-bellied snake. Was he to be branded, too? What guarantee had he that there would never be another Fall? She had promised not to flood the Earth a second time, but he knew far too well that Her whim was stronger than Her Word. If plagues could ravage Her chosen children, Her most beloved of all creations, then what of him when his transgressions grew too many?

A trumpet sounded then, loud and long, and Aziraphale yelped, shuffling to the back of his minuscule space. This was it, the moment of reckoning. What horrors lay before him, he could not fathom. Neither was he certain how strong he would find himself in the face of his superiors. If he was to be brought before an elder choir, put on trial for his parade of sins—knowingly committed or otherwise, they would surely fault him the same—would he stand tall, accepting his lot with the dignity befitting his station, or would he cower, pleading for life as he knew it not to end? Perhaps, he thought feverishly as the trumpet sounded once more, there was a middle ground. A bargaining to be done with whomever had been sent for him. Of only thing he was sure: he would trade it all, give up every hope, every luxury of corporeal existence, for the assurance that Crowley would be alright in the end. 

Aziraphale clutched his knees to his chest, shivering in the frosty December night. He could hear them now, the footsteps approaching firm and fast, exuding purpose. There was a rap on the canvas flap at the front of the tent—one last opportunity to salvage his pride. 

‘Might I dress first.’ It was not a question. Aziraphale did not know which way the wind would blow, but he refused to meet it in undergarments. Whomever had been sent was a patient soul, and for that he was grateful. After miracling himself clean, he made quick work of setting his vestments to rights. He tied his heavy woolen cloak tightly about his neck and ran his hands anxiously through his hair before securing his cap. Aziraphale unlatched the flimsy buckle holding his tent closed and stepped out. The scene was chaos. Englishmen running in every direction, huddled over maps, preparing weapons. Campfires were lit every few feet, illuminating the scene, which, it took him too long to realize, held no trace of celestial presence save his own.

‘W-what…?’ he inquired of the man who had come to fetch him. ‘Sorry… what’s going on?’

‘The two trumpets, didn’t you hear them? The winds favored the rebels, the Spanish will arrive by daybreak! We must split the troops, hold the siege with half the men while the rest cast off to meet them by sea.’

‘Right…’ Aziraphale’s mind was such a haze of the terrors of Heaven and his forthcoming interrogation there, that it took more than few moments of blinking rapidly against the cold before he came around to the reality on the ground. There was no celestial agent at his proverbial doorstep. There would be no trial for treason or otherwise. There were simply ships—man made and easily managed—approaching a frost-riddled shoreline. 

Aziraphale cleared his throat, feeling his Adam’s apple quiver against the pale skin of his neck. ‘Where’s the Captain, then? I’m ready to receive orders.’

The soldier led him into a large tent, where he joined the melee of men scrabbling for information, direction, and a bit of stolen warmth. Aziraphale hung in the back, listening to the plans with more relief than a man at war should have felt. He would be deployed with the sea bound crew, he soon learned. He was not a sailor, but so be it. Anything to end this miserable blood-riddled imperialist jaunt. 

The hours before battle passed in a fevered hush of checking weapons stores, loading trauma kit onto their ships, and swigging from bottles of ‘commandeered’ Irish whiskey. Aziraphale, loaded pistol at his hip, held to the designated sickbay as best he could. By the time the sky grew ruddy with dawn, the intercepting fleet was halfway to their mark. In what felt to Aziraphale like only a few minutes, the sounds of continental surprise were filling the maritime winds. The Spanish, overconfident as usual, had not counted on the English making such an aggressive play for success, and before their shouts could be heard over the waves, fire had been opened on the armada. 

They regrouped quickly, however, and Aziraphale soon found himself up to the eyes in tourniquets and ill-performed amputations, slipping miracles in left and right to prevent an otherwise horrific death count. The deck all around him was muddied with bloody footprints. He longed for his flat in London, for the poetic sort of death lamented by the Dane. He longed for drawling innuendo in his left ear, wine-blessed lips, silent confessions by firelight. He longed for Cr-

The entire ship jolted, hit square on the main deck by enemy fire! Aziraphale could not imagine by what luck he had avoided discorporating from shock, if not the blast. It would not sink them, he heard the Captain holler as he turned wildly about, searching for a capable hand to return fire. His eyes settled on Aziraphale. 

‘You there! Light the canon—for Queen and Country!’

Aziraphale tried to stutter out a protest, but the ship rocked again. 

‘Now, for God’s sake!’

There was nothing else for it. He staggered across the deck, sliding precariously around men trying to repair damage, triage the wounded, and proceed on their mission as though following orders to decimate those yearning for freedom was the most natural thing in the world. A rising tide of nausea swayed Aziraphale’s stomach. As he reached the assigned canon, he found himself gripping it for dear life while he dry heaved until he was sure his eyesight would be permanently damaged. He had never been so grateful for going without food before. Exhaling through chattering teeth, Aziraphale loaded his weapon. He took aim as high as he could make excuses for, desperate not to cause a break low on the hull, and fired. Only, before his shot could land, an assault from an accompanying English ship made contact, tilting the Spanish flagship enough to cause Aziraphale’s fire to strike at the water line. The effect was immediate: the flagship was capsizing, Spanish crew were plunging into the water, and the battle was clearly won. 

Amidst the scurry of activity aboard, a cheer went up around Aziraphale as the enemy ship sank. The jovial noise was a roar in his ears, a hideous war cry reverberating in his skull, like the call of a lion fresh off the kill of a challenger. 

He ran. 

He ran as the tears flooded his eyesight, blinding him to all but the vague shapes of his fellow hunters. He ran as bile and self-loathing mingled in his throat, choking off his air supply and his will to be. He ran and ran, colliding with more than a few men before hurling himself into an escape boat and lowering himself into the turmoil of the Irish Sea. Aziraphale ran, and he did not look back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Battle/Siege of Kinsale, Ireland was the decisive battle in the Irish uprising against England in late 1601. The Spanish did send naval aid, the English did win. The details in the fic are fabricated — I have no idea how it all actually went down, sorry.


	5. Crowley

‘What have they done?’ Kokabiel’s lip quivered in the early morning light. He had been walking the garden for hours, examining his work, his beloved children of vermilion and crimson, chartreuse and lavender. ‘What have they done to you?’ He stepped slowly across the stream running by the gnarled roots of the tree, hesitant to approach for fear of what he might find. Something about the fruit was… off. It looked as beautiful as ever, but he could sense something rotten, something vile marring his most cherished creation. 

He inched toward a low-hanging bough. As he twisted an apple off it’s stem, a steadying hand laid over his. 

‘She’s told us not to touch,’ the voice over his shoulder was sun-kissed and honey-rich. Adam spoke again. ‘She said we are not to eat of this tree, alone of all the trees in the garden. We may have our fill from the land and orchard alike, but not this. I do not wish to betray Her, angel. She has provided well.’

Crowley turned slowly, and placed a gentle hand on Adam’s shoulder. 

‘Neither do I wish to betray Her. I see why She has forbidden this fruit; there is something gravely wrong with its flesh, I fear. I do not wish you to eat of this tree any more than you wish to break Her trust. Let me examine what has taken place. I am the gardener here, I may be able to cure what ails this plant. You will be quite right not to eat what it bears until you hear again from me.’

Adam frowned, unconvinced, yet backed away from the angel all the same. Kokabiel set at once upon his work, dissecting one apple after another, following capillaries to their source, testing the water flowing cool and swift beneath the overhanging leaves. Nothing appeared out of place, and yet the more he investigated, the more certain he became that something terrible had occurred. With each passing hour under the tree, Kokabiel’s hunger grew. He did not require sustenance for his corporation, yet his tongue drew across his lips, saliva filled his mouth, and his eyes turned to the glistening red fruit overhead. He had not experienced craving before then, and he was sure he did not enjoy it now. Hands shaking, he removed another apple from its branch. He knew he needed to fight this mounting urge to take a bite, but his body was growing weaker than it had ever been, and his stomach rumbled with desire. 

Until he saw it. One apple, one lone dissenter in the bunch, had rolled to the ground. Kokabiel knelt and reached between the roots, squeezing his hand into a small notch to withdraw it. 

Bite marks.

There were bite marks in the apple, and in the center, where the seeds should have been to make plenty the descendants of his glorious creation, were tiny pillars of salt. Kokabiel was stunned. There was only one person—well, not  _ person _ —who could have perpetrated this act. He was on the verge of pitching the poisonous fruit into the stream, when it occurred to him, it might cause the water source, and the whole garden, to turn into the same inedible disaster as this, his beloved child. What could he have done to deserve such treatment, such a vicious attack, from one of his own?

He ran. He ran across the stream, not bothering to lift his robes, which soaked up the cool water of the garden like a thirsty plant. He ran through briars and thistles, catching on thorns high and low, brambles sticking to his wings, which were wrought insensitive to the pain by his growing ire. He ran and ran until he was nose to stone with the Eastern Wall. The Principality in charge was barely visible in the distance, and Kokabiel made quick work of escaping through his loose stones. 

Crossing the landscape cautiously, dark wings tucked close against his back, he approached an outcropping of sandstone boulders. The back door would afford him a more discrete route, allowing time to find whom he was looking for with less chance of his mission being interrupted. Shielded behind the rocks from both beasts and beating sun, Kokabiel closed his eyes, spread his wings, and leaned back. What he needed was an answer, and an answer he would have. What he did not expect was a war. 

The clash of swords, the screams carried sharply through the thin ether, greeted a horrified Kokabiel. Severed wings and bleeding eyes filled his sight in every direction as metal caught feathers. Lions’ teeth and eagles’ talons ripped and tore into holy flesh, and flaming pillars sprung up, cracking the very floor of Heaven open beneath their feet. Kokabiel dodged the fiery founts, confusion and anger mingling into one volcanic emotion. 

‘Sandalphon!’ He called into the fray, voice rough with the acrid sulphuric smoke rapidly filling the space. ‘Sandalphon! Show yourself!’

Kokabiel ducked as a rogue sword went flying past his face. He could not discern sides, let alone the owner of one lonely weapon, and so he snatched it up off the ground and forced his way deeper into the crowd. 

‘Sandalphon!’ He must be found, no matter what was happening here. He must be-

‘Kokabiel,’ came the sneer to his left. The other angel was covered in blood. Upon looking closer, it became clear that it wasn’t his own. ‘Knew you’d come looking for me. Thought you’d have better timing.’ He cackled sardonically, eyes streaming from the smoke now billowing through the air. 

‘What have you done, Sandalphon? What have you done to my  _ child?! _ ’ Kokabiel bellowed in a voice he had never heard himself use before. It was a voice that matched the atmosphere of battle—a voice belonging to something lower. 

‘Following orders, you weak piece of nothing! You pathetic little starboy! She must have known you wouldn’t have the courage to give such weight to your own precious little  _ baby, _ your darling sapling in that garden of dreams. Yes, She knew better than to ask an Architect to do the work of a proper angel.’

No.  _ No.  _ It couldn’t be true. It could not be She, in all of her benevolence, who would destroy the one thing he held most dear.

‘Oh, but She would,’ Sandalphon grinned, ‘leave it to me. You see, She wanted someone with real power. Real loyalty. And that is why I was the one called upon. The knowledge now encompassed in those frivolous little fruit of yours rivals only Her own. I wouldn’t have been surprised if those ridiculous humans had gone and eaten it, learned the true ways of the universe. But no, you had to make them tempting to all creatures, didn’t you? Either you’re very sly, or very stupid.’

‘W-what? Who… if it wasn’t Adam a-and Eve, who could have-?’

‘I suppose it’s stupid, then. How do you think all this finally kicked off, you blundering fool?  _ Words? _ This is the work of your shining friend, the Morning Star. As is that,’ he pointed disgustedly to the bitten apple still clutched in Kokabiel’s other hand. 

‘Don’t you dare,’ Kokabiel thundered, lunging forward with a sudden surge of rage. The edge of his scavenged sword dug into the soft flesh below Sandalphon’s chin, pressing upward until blood trickled down his neck. Sandalphon laughed again, high and haughty. 

‘Oh, I’ve already dared,’ he mocked, teeth bared in a grim semblance of a smile. ‘And now, I’ll win.’

His shape belied his speed, and Kokabiel found himself flung to the ground, scrabbling backward as Sandalphon advanced. There was a scythe in his hand, which certainly had not been there before, and his eyes were like a predatory animal, taunted by its prey and finally gaining ground. Kokabiel did not know what in the realms of Heaven and Earth he could have done to cause such offense, but if there had been a time for sitting with his brother and sorting their differences, it had now sorely passed. His own anger was turning to fear as the scythe swiped at his chest, glinting in the light of those horrible fires, which sprung up without warning all around them. The very floor of Heaven shook violently with each new eruption of flame, and the smoke grew so thick as to blind Kokabiel to all but the glare from Sandalphon’s weapon. Screams and screeches from his brethren tore at his mind as they slipped, one by one, into the burning columns. 

And then the floor beneath his feet was no more. Kokabiel twisted, dropping sword and apple into the new fountain of fire to grapple at the edge of existence. 

‘Sandalphon!’ He called, voice hoarse and thin, and then let out a soul-shaking cough. ‘Sandalphon, please! Please, don’t let it end this way!’

A horrible, mangled countenance appeared over Kokabiel’s hands. Vicious eyes shone as brightly as golden teeth in the light of damnation. 

‘Oh, but it isn’t ending! This is only where the story begins,’ he swiped his scythe at Kokabiel’s clinging hands, which reflexively released, plunging him into the flames, ‘you absolutely pathetic, crawly…’

His voice, all voices, were overcome by the sound of an unbearable rushing wind. It pulsed through him, stripping his soul into tatters. If Kokabiel screamed, it was lost to the painful breath of Time streaming all around him. The fire burned like ice, ripping across his robes, his flesh, the very essence of him. His Grace, the foundation upon which his angelic existence depended, was being torn from him. It was as if his Earthly body had been turned inside out, and each organ plucked apart, one by one, and thrown onto the pyre. He opened what was left of his heart, of himself, to pray—not for redemption, or salvation, but for decimation. For death. 

Still, he fell. The tears falling from his eyes clung to his cheeks, forming daggers of despair as he plunged into nothingness. For that is what there was, and, he feared, what he would become. Nothing. It beat around him like a drum, like wings as black as the night, as black as his own. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing.

One million years of falling, and the darkness finally completed itself. At least, he breathed. He tested his wings, his body, his voice. This place was cold, terribly, terribly cold. But at one end, there was now a lightness. Nothing so welcoming as light itself, but a greyness which spoke of possibility, of potential life. He moved toward it, cautious at first, then with a more determined speed.  _ What could be left to lose? _

As the scene finally closed, Crowley found himself shivering violently. There was one thing left to lose, and he would be thrice damned before he let that happen. 


	6. Aziraphale

There was nothing kind about a continental winter. Aziraphale drifted on the winds, always staying just ahead of the snow. Penance, he knew, must be uncomfortable—and sometimes, downright painful—in order to work. He was determined that it should work. Adopting the vestige of a traveling monk upon his landing at Brittany, Aziraphale kept his own counsel as he crossed the open country between hamlets. He did not beg. He simply went without, taking shelter in farm sheds and public houses, and denying his body all that it did not require. 

He meandered through weeks and months, reeling at first from his unwitting mass murder, then from his inability to form a plan to rescue his beloved from… well, he still did not know from what. Some nights, when he was stealing equine company, when rain pelted the earth too hard to be absorbed, as his thoughts battered against his own brain, he feared that he had gotten it all wrong. Perhaps that evening had not happened. What if Crowley had never happened, what if his war-addled brain had invented the whole affair, Garden to Globe? It was on these occasions that he was most grateful for his ill-gained souvenir, that whisper of plumage tucked against his own chest beneath his clothing. If it were not for that, Aziraphale might have gone mad. 

It’d been ages since he attended to happenings outside of England; he had no desire to attend them now. Only… there were whispers. Aziraphale had ventured quietly across France, and waded uneventfully through the Spanish Netherlands. But now, as he slipped through the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire, he heard tell of something brewing. A prince recently returned from exile, it was said, and he was waging his own war against heresy. Aziraphale was warned off Fulda, and he knew it was a warning to be heeded. 

Which was, of course, why he headed directly into town. Christianity as espoused by Luther had taken hold across large swaths of Europe, and under policies of religious tolerance, Fulda was no exception. This returned prince, however, would have none of it, it was told. Catholicism would be the law of the land, and while Aziraphale did not particularly enjoy compulsory faith, it wasn’t exactly new, was it. 

No, it wasn’t the demand of fealty to Rome that set Aziraphale’s hackles to rising. It was the stakes—literally. The prodigal prince had set about to purge his territory of dissent by accusation of witchcraft. The practice instilled more than a general fear, Aziraphale knew well. It instilled hate. It hardened hearts and turned neighbors to executioners. A wave of terror was crashing over this land, and Aziraphale, weak as he was with self-flatulation, felt powerless to stop it. And yet, he could not bring himself to turn away. There was something here, some stone in the center of this rotten fruit. 

He applied to be assumed into the monastic order of the city, and was welcomed with open arms when his immense skill as a scribe was discovered. A simple enough disguise would allow him to slip out into the streets, where he could chase the pulse of evil that just eluded him. He could feel it always in the public outcries that followed sermons against witches and their contracts with Satan—as though Satan himself had the time or inclination to deal in such triviality. Aziraphale doubted whether Hell was involved at all. These things always reeked of that distinctly human vice of misogyny, born early in the species’ inception, and carried swiftly with the tide of humanity. He had witnessed enough to know that Hell merely played along, stoked the fires of power-hunger that appeared so often in men. 

He would not root out the source of his personal inquisition in such crowds as these. He began frequenting the cafes, such as they were, the butchers’ shops and the riverside mills. Aziraphale caught traces of it, occasionally—a presence he began to think of as  _ Them. _ He altered his appearance and began skulking about the underbelly of the city. Docks and storehouses bore nothing but the faintest whiff of Them, and he was near to quitting the region altogether when he discovered that most ancient of all trade buildings: the brothel.

Hidden away beneath a respectable brewery (round the back and through the cellar), was surviving a profession as seemingly requisite to the maintenance of humanity as farming. It was here that Aziraphale found his extra-natural senses leading. Not because of something so prudish as vice, but because something else, someone else, housed themselves in this den of temptation. Though, now that Aziraphale was within shooting distance, so to speak, he found the actual outline of Their evil a bit lacking. At large in the city, it had been mingling with the guilt, anger, and anxiety of the newly repressed masses. But here, where townspeople came to throw off those shackles, there was, in fact, much less feeling of vileness. On the contrary, there was an increased sense of love. It mingled, of course, with a heady sort of temporary euphoria, but nevertheless, the love was there. 

This was wonderful news on two counts. First, the waves of positivity were like a hot bath on a cold day for Aziraphale, who had been so isolated as to catch only fragments of warm emotion in these miserable months since his desertion of the English. Second, being surrounded by such warmth allowed him to detect the cool misanthropy of Them. In the service of this, he began visiting the brothel barroom daily. He never engaged with the women working beyond ordering and paying for his drinks, and this earned him somewhat of a reputation amongst those who would whisper for the whole room to hear. 

One evening, as he was laying down his fourth empty glass, he was approached by the barman. 

‘Drinking to remember, or to forget?’ The man offered his hand to Aziraphale as he sat without invitation. Their hands were cold. 

‘Oh, I think perhaps a bit of both.’

‘If none of these ladies are to your liking, maybe I can tempt you to someone a bit more… like yourself.’

‘I don’t believe you could if you wanted to, my dear chap,’ Aziraphale replied through gritted teeth. ‘But I wonder if you get much word of travelers in this establishment?’

‘We get word of a lot of things down here. Anyone in particular you’d like inquiring after?’

‘Crowley.’

The barman's face went to ash. ‘I’ve n-never heard such a n-name in these parts.’

‘Oh, I rather think you have heard the name, though not in these parts. Perhaps a bit  _ farther _ underground, hm?’ Aziraphale did not know when he had gripped Their wrist, the pressure from his fingers already leaving bruises. He would have word of his friend or he would tear this creature apart trying.

‘M-maybe we could… could t-talk someplace else?’

‘Someplace more private, yes. I suppose you have rooms available, though this may not be the fare they’re used to seeing.’

‘Y-yes. Yes, I’ll just go for a key and-’

‘I don’t think a key will be necessary under the circumstances.’ Aziraphale slid his fingers down between Theirs, and the two of them headed out of the main chamber. A few jeers and far more salutes came their way, and Aziraphale smiled demurely in response. One must keep up appearances. 

Aziraphale let himself be led until a door closed behind him, then with a snap of his fingers, the bolt turned and his pretense dropped. Enormous white wings unfurled, slow and silent, brushing the wall on either side of the minuscule space. 

‘Where is he?’ The fury behind his deep-bellied growl came from a place he had always doubted he possessed. The being before him shook and stammered; he would doubt no more. 

‘L-last I knew, he was roaming L-London, thwarting some a-angel or other.’

‘Do not lie to me, Azazel. Crowley was taken in autumn, and we both know how lucrative that season is for you  _ below,’ _ he snarled. His Earthly stomach turned over at the thought of the slaughters that had taken place to appease this simpering excuse for a fallen angel. It only increased his wrath. 

‘N-no! You’re wrong!’

‘Wrong? You aren’t suggesting it was  _ my _ lot that took him.’ Aziraphale was gambling, but as it was with someone else’s life, it felt rather worth the risk. ‘Because I think you well know what comes to citizens of this country who dare speak against my-’

‘No! No, I mean… he wasn’t… w-wasn’t taken! Not like that anyway.’

‘Explain yourself,’ Aziraphale commanded, wings lifting to the ceiling, brushing loose soil and cobwebs from the untended space. 

‘W-what I mean to say is… he… discorporated. Not in the usual way, mind you,’ Azazel began, settling slightly now that he knew what was wanted of him. ‘I don’t see the reports, wouldn’t read them anyway. But the talk around the office-’ he snorted. 

It was a mistake. Aziraphale reared up to a fuller height than his bodily form should have allowed, and whispered Azazel’s name in their native tongue. The demon gripped his head, hissing wildly. 

‘He m-must have met with a strong blessing. Nothing short of receiving Her grace could rip out a demon’s soul and pitch it into the Chambers of Time.’

Aziraphale withdrew slightly. ‘The Chambers…?’

‘The outer reaches of Hell. Souls are condemned there which have no destination, no standing. We were all their once, my brothers and I, when the reckoning came. Despair and madness are your only companions, and the screeching of the hideous passage of Time. Our beings were stripped bare of the very grace which bore our weight, and yet we remained. The Unholy Paradox, we call it. The Chambers have been closed since we scraped and clawed our way out. But word is, that’s where Crowley is to be found. So whatever you want with him, you’ll be satisfied to know—he’s got worse.’

Aziraphale shrank back into himself. ‘The receiving of grace…’

‘It must be,’ Azazel nodded, untucking his shirt then re-tucking it poorly. ‘Nothing more toxic to a demon than a single brush with grace. Can’t imagine how such a thing could even have happened. What’d he have to do to be banished like that, fuck an angel?’ Azazel laughed, loud and raucous, as Aziraphale folded his wings out of sight. Aziraphale swallowed. Bile.

‘Rough your clothes up a bit, will you? Got a reputation to uphold around here.’

‘Yes,’ said Aziraphale absently. ‘Your reputation.’

***

Aziraphale took his morning prayer on the south balcony, overlooking the city center. The prominence of the monastery in Fulda afforded him outstanding views of the town, and he had never been more grateful. It was cold, though. The oncoming spring took more than its allotment of time to appear, and he could see his own breath in the charcoal light of this early hour.

He watched, whispering his adulations by rote over folded palms, as the rising sun stirred the town to waking. Millers and bakers, traders and shipmen. Women beating rugs and children scrambling about to their mothers’ consternation. It would be coming soon, he could feel it. There was a stirring, thin and scarlet, growing heavier by the minute. A small group of men gathered before the ex-Lutheran chapel. They were uncertain, nervous. Aziraphale soothed them, pushed a sense of righteousness toward them through the open air. He felt them grow easy and sure. 

One man broke away, and Aziraphale knew the wheels were turning. His mouth continued its recitation of its own accord, while his eyes followed the crowd growing in the mounting light. The platform being constructed by sight was exceptional, perfectly level with precise edges. The large pole being erected on its western side cast an accusatory shadow. Aziraphale couldn’t help but think it was fitting, as he cast blame back across the Channel, himself. It was not England which had taken Crowley, he knew, yet he could not help the venom which rose in him as the thought of those rooms so lately occupied. 

This would have to suffice for now. Aziraphale rose from his knees, brushing the dust from his habit before slipping it off his shoulders and laying it over the rail. With a concentrated nod of his head, his beggar’s robes were returned. He was unbothered, thanks to a miraculous clearing of his own way out of the building. He would do what must needs be done. He always had. 

Aziraphale wandered in shadow until he reached a vantage point off the square. The shouting was coming from the direction of the river. A man was being dragged, kicking and pleading, toward the pyre now being lit. A wave of warmth blew through the alley where Aziraphale hid himself as the flames caught the dry tinder and lifted higher into the air. He closed his eyes and sighed, not happy, but contented. Azazel would not be pardoned. 

‘On Earth,’ Aziraphale whispered solemnly, ‘as it is in Heaven.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Fulda witch trials were a real occurrence, but they took place 1603-1606. There was a prince who was restored to power who was fiercely Catholic and Papist; he restored the monastic order to prominence and is generally considered directly responsible for the witch trials during his reign.


	7. Michael

Michael tapped the edge of their paperwork against the glass tabletop. It was enough. The gathered angels quieted promptly; no one screwed with Michael. 

‘We have news from our former brethren regarding one of our own. A matter concerning your department,  _ Gabriel. _ ’ Michael looked as though they had swallowed bitter wine. At the mere mention of his name, Gabriel became a floundering fish, seeking through his files for excuses for the implied accusation. Pathetic. 

‘I have invited the Prince here to speak on this matter.’ Murmurs went around the table. Still, after thousands upon thousands of years, it was a shock to Michael that these other angels could be so provincial. It wasn’t as though they had invited a human to the quarterly. It was only a denizen of Hell, for fucks’ sake. 

‘If you pleaze,’ a voice rang in the hollow room as the small-statured figure rounded a corner, ‘I don’t have all day to wazte.’ 

‘I know the feeling. Let’s have it then.’ A chair materialized, and Beelzebub sat, a tiny spot of sin beside Michael’s pristine self-righteousness. 

‘We have it on undeniable authority that the angel Azzziraphale, lately of the Eastern Gate, haz been conzorting with the demon Crowley, Znake of Eden.’

‘On whose authority precisely?’ Michael inquired, eyebrows shooting up. 

Beelzebub pointed a stubby finger at Gabriel. ‘Hiz.’

Heads turned so quickly at the table that a tropical storm kicked up in the Pacific from the rush of wind. 

‘I… w- you can’t…’

‘Silence, you,’ Michael ordered. ‘Beelzebub, in what way did you learn of these goings on from Gabriel?’

‘It waz not hiz fault, he iz zimply an idiot. He left a report zitting bezide the door of hiz tailor’z shop, and one of our enterprizing young demons had a read. In truth, it helped uz immenzely. You zee, the demon Crowley had been zucked into the outer realmz of Hell. We did not know by what forze he had fallen—or rather, fallen again—until we knew he had engaged with one of your people in a  _ carnal _ zituation.’

‘Gabriel!’ Michael’s palm slammed against the table, causing a spider web effect in the glass. ‘Why have I not seen this report?’

The sound of his own papers shuffling must have been deafening to the fumbling archangel. Michael, per usual, had no sympathy to spare. 

‘I’m waiting for a response. The Prince doesn’t have all day, and neither do the rest of us.’

‘Ah ha! Here! It’s… it’s here. I thought I had filed it, but with the war going, I assumed it would be more pressing to-’

‘It is not yours to assume, Gabriel. Beelzebub, what say your people on this matter? Who cares if the Snake of Eden is relegated to the Chambers for eternity? Surely, the fate of the angel Aziraphale is in our hands anyway.’

‘And zuch capable handz they are,’ Beelzebub snickered, glancing at a sweating Gabriel. ‘Yezzz, we might deal with zeeze tranzgrezzors zeparately. However. Given the  _ nature _ of the crime in queztion, it iz our contenzzzion that zere may be a mutually beneficial zolution.’

Michael gestured impatiently. Honestly, for a highly ranked demon who claimed not to have time to spare, Beelzebub could go  _ on. _

‘I zuggest,’ Beelzebub continued, ‘we let zem fuck.’

Michael recoiled. Down the table, Gabriel spluttered, ostensibly choking on his own tongue. 

‘What in the Eternal Realms would make you think we would ever-’

‘Hear me out. One brush with zeleztial blizzzz dizcorporated Crowley zo zeverly that he ended up in the Ziberian wilderness of Hell. One more encounter with grazzzze might juzt be enough to…’ They made a gesture across their neck of which no one could mistake the meaning. ‘If the angel were to knowingly provide thiz grazzzze-’

‘Then he would be guilty of attempting to restore one of the fallen, which would constitute the highest order of treason. Intriguing. Very intriguing. I imagine,’ they turned a pointed expression toward Uriel, ‘such an act as knowingly passing his grace to a demon would result in Aziraphale’s discorporation?’

‘Yes, it would be so. If we had a way of knowing when it would happen, we could arrange for a small party of us to be waiting for him when he arrived back here in Heaven. Though that would likely require some poor sod standing outside his window during the act.’ Uriel cringed, her eyes willing Michael not to assign her the task. 

‘We could arrange,’ Beelzebub interrupted, ‘for one of ourzzz to do that.’

‘No need,’ Michael returned. ‘Gabriel. Since this occurred on your watch-’ the archangel’s eyes grew wide with horror, and Michael enjoyed their first genuine smile of the day- ‘I believe you will do us the honour of standing watch.’

‘If I may,’ Sandalphon’s oily voice cut through the moment, ‘I would like to volunteer to meet Aziraphale upon his arrival. It was me, after all, who sent the demon to his fate. I think I deserve the opportunity to assist his  _ partner _ with the same.’

Michael waved a hand dismissively and collected their papers. ‘Yes, fine. Off with you, then. Prince, if I may have a word?’

The two of them sat in mutually annoyed silence until the other angels were out of earshot. 

‘There is still the matter of how to convince them to pursue this act. Much as the first instance was a matter of curiosity-’

‘Dezzzire.’

Michael was sure they would vomit. ‘Fine. Much as the first instance was  _ spontaneous _ , surely Crowley must have determined by now what caused his return to the Chambers of Time?’

‘You undereztimate the dezperation he will be feeling. You have never fallen. You do not know the zoul-zearing cold, the roar of grazzze leaving your very ezzenze, or the exzruciating pain of memoriez returned. Crowley will no doubt be reliving hiz own fall from Heaven. When he iz releazed—for zooner or later, the Chamber will open—he will either be wracked with madness, or clambering for redemption. Hiz rezeption of grazzze from the angel zuggestz the latter. He iz not merely a creature of luzt. The demon Crowley iz in love.’

‘I didn’t realize your kind could love.’ 

Michael’s sarcasm appeared lost on Beelzebub. Either that, or the Prince simply didn’t care. 

‘Crowley haz alwayz been… different. Any demon might engage in zexual prozeedings if they zo wish. No otherzzz, however, have rezeived the  _ blezzing,’ _ they spit the word out as though it were rotten fruit, ‘of grazzze from zomething az zimple az a zexual climazzz. It could only have happened if it were, on both zidez, more than a phyzical act.’

‘You’re implying that the angel Aziraphale is in love with the demon Crowley in return?’

‘I am not implying it. I am zaying it.’

Michael paused in thought, raking their nails across the fractured glass of the tabletop beneath their hands. If Aziraphale was truly in love with this Crowley, he would be loath to engage in any act which could further harm him. Only if he believed it were necessary would he take the risk. It went strictly against Heavenly Policy to lie to an angel of the Lord. What they needed was someone sufficiently vague and blundering, with enough self-importance not to notice. What they needed was-

‘I’ll put Gabriel on it. He cocked this up in the first place, he can sort it now. The only remaining question is how to inform Aziraphale that he was the very cause of his demon’s anti-redemption.’

The Prince stood and smugly brushed soot from their trousers and sash. ‘I believe Azzzazel haz already zeen to that.’

Michael sneered at the flecks falling on the freshly waxed floor. ‘Azazel? The Scapegoat? What has he to do with this?’

‘Before hiz lazt pozition zaw him… fired… he held counzel with the angel Aziraphale. In hiz infinite ztupidity, he aczzzidentally filled your man in on what cauzed hiz conzort’z zudden dizzzappearance. Knowing your kind and your penzzzhant for guilt, he iz likely roaming ze Earth trying to find a way to bring Crowley back. He need not worry for long. Zere are zignz that the Chambers of Time are opening zoon.’

‘And when they open?’

‘Crowley will be releazed into the main halls of Hell. We will collect him and have him returned to London. Get your angel back there, and zet that Gabriel onto hiz case. I will zee to Crowley perzonally.’

Michael picked at the wreckage of the tabletop again, thoughts clouding their mind. If Gabriel failed… but, no. For all of his blathering, he could be trusted when push came to shove. He was far too concerned with appearing successful to risk screwing this up again. He may have been an idiot, as Beelzebub had said, but he was a loyal idiot. Heaven help them. 

‘Alright,’ Michael said, staring at the cracks that no longer were. ‘Sounds like a great...’ The room was silent, spotless. Where Beelzebub had been standing, there was no one. ‘...plan.’


	8. Crowley

There were walls, now. Jagged, vicious stone scraping at his palms. Through the searing pain, Crowley forced a thought into his mind: if he had palms to scrape, he was alive. Hand over bloody hand, bare feet scrabbling for purchase, Crowley levered himself up toward the dim haze of Hell. Below, the abyss still hung, ice and howling Time nipping at his heels as he climbed. Would that his animorph had been a raven, a vulture, anything that could have spared him this muscle-wrenching endeavor. The heat pouring over the edge of this oubliette to nothingness warred with the cold raging upward. Crowley’s stomach churned with the stench of brimstone; his limbs trembled violently with the clash of climate. One hand slipped and his body listed to the right. He vomited into the darkness, bile and tears and faith. The inferno above growled, a beast ready to leap from the bush and strike. Time wailed below, lost souls lamenting their final breaths. 

Perhaps he should let go, become one of The Lost. Hell would carry on without him, Heaven would rejoice. Nothing on Earth would change. His eternal absence would go unmarked. 

_ Except… _

Crowley did not know whether he was loved. He did not know whether he had been an experiment, a whim, a fit of common desire. But if he had been so wholly and dramatically ripped from the fabric of corporation, he did know Aziraphale might also be in danger.  _ Aziraphale. _ Crowley screamed as he dragged an aching hand back onto the sharp obsidian cliff face.  _ Aziraphale.  _ Toes curled behind a jut of stone, and he shoved himself upward, toward the flames.  _ Aziraphale. _ A sweat broke out on his brow as Hellfire overwhelmed the icy burn below.  _ Aziraphale. _ Crowley’s elbows were over the edge, digging into dirt as he dragged his lower body onto solid ground.

He didn’t know how long he laid there, lungs burning with sulfur, hands bleeding into the barren soil of the river bank. The lapping of the water was an odd sort of balm, a familiar evil.  _ The devil you know, _ Crowley thought, a light smile playing at his lips. He blinked his eyes open, adjusting to the scarlet light. Smoke hung in the air, as though a thousand geyers were biding their time around him, ready at any instant to blow. 

And then, something else. A  _ slip-crunch _ that he couldn’t identify. Slowly, achingly slowly, Crowley drew himself to sitting, and found himself face to face with the bow of a small boat. 

‘Get in.’ The voice was tinny and hollow and all too real. Real. Thank the stars above, it was real. ‘We can heal you, but I don’t have all day,’ Beelzebub snapped. 

Crowley hauled himself unceremoniously into the rowboat and remained where he fell, huddled on the floor of the craft at the feet of the Ferryman. It would be a long journey, he knew, and he allowed his eyes to flutter shut for the first time since this nightmare began. 

When he awoke, he was seated opposite a large metal desk, upon which Beelzebub was tapping one finger in a horrible approximation of rhythm. Crowley’s pain was substantially less, and he was freshly dressed in fashionable English attire. His throat was too dry to speak, and he inquired of his situation with only a raised eyebrow. 

‘The rezzzt of the pain zhould dizzipate within the hour. Then you will be returned to London, az zcheduled.’

Crowley gulped air, setting off a prolonged coughing fit. ‘You,’ he croaked, ‘you’re sending me back to-’ He lost himself to the sting in his throat, eyes welling with tears as he silently begged for saliva to come. 

‘Yezzz. You have been recovered, and we believe you have unfinizhed buzzzinezz. Thiz angel Azzziraphale.’

‘Aziraphale?’

‘Your zelf-zacrifize in tempting him to carnal relazionz waz admirable. We believe he iz mozt dezperately in love with you.’

‘In love with me?’

‘If you do not ztop repeating after me, I will be forzed to throw you back into the abyzz. Yez. He iz in love with you. You are now tazked with a very zimple firzt azzignment—break hiz heart.’

‘W-What?’

‘You will break the heart of the angel. Tell him you cannot be with him, tell him you do not love him. Tell him whatever will hurt him the mozt. If he purzuez you, all the better.’

‘It… not… th-I-ju… wh-I-can… I thought we were in the business of tempting humans?’

‘Uzually, yez. But juzt imagine, if you could hurt an angel enough to draw him into dezperate actzzz. If you zuczeed, we can find a plaze for you here permanently. No more need to travel to that dizguzting planet.’

‘What if I… er… should happen to fail?’ Crowley swallowed, almost successfully. ‘After all, there are a number of factors which, when dealing with an angel, after all, would be cause for-’

‘Don’t.’ 

Thin hands gripped thinner chair arms as Beelzebub’s dark eyes bore into Crowley’s own. He saw the smoke stretching toward him before it hit, and he tensed. Why they couldn’t continue speaking like normal people, he would never know. 

Crowley had lived—re-lived—years, decades, millennia in that prison below, but it was only to be 1602 A.D. when he was returned. London would be imperceptibly aged, his rooms would be found in their former state, and all’s well that ends well, as Aziraphale’s playwright friend was so fond of saying.  _ Aziraphale _ . The blood that pulsed again through Crowley’s corporation flowed to the rhythm of his name. If it were true, what the Prince was saying… oh, but Crowley couldn’t risk a thought for that. Not here, not now. London would be large enough to buffer his treasonous emotions, if treason were possible for the twice damned. Somehow, Crowley suspected it was. 

He stood slowly, testing limbs so recently abused, and found the aches continuing to subside. He would hold. 

‘London, then?’

‘London,’ Beelzebub agreed, already shuffling through paperwork and looking bored with the whole affair. 

Crowley stretched long fingers, knuckles popping and cracking like wood on a fire. A memory of a warm hearth and a soft body came rushing back, and he strode toward the lifts. He knew he wouldn’t need the small flat that had been restored to him. No, in all of London—in all the world—Crowley could only have one destination. 

He traveled on foot. For all his eagerness to locate Aziraphale, to secure his body, and his soul, and his heart, the anxiety over his Hell-given dilemma was tremendous. Crowley wandered the streets, weaving through fruit stalls and past shopfronts, dodging running children and stray dogs. An entire world contained in these city limits, and yet, he was a stranger. Not for his identity, or his age. But his thoughts. Thoughts of angels and forgiveness, thoughts of love and desperation. Thoughts of his inherent unworthiness, and of the necessity to succeed.

He would succeed, or they would perish, he knew. If Aziraphale loved him, bore even one ounce of genuine affection for him, Crowley knew he would defy Satan himself to nurture that tender emotion. He harboured no dream of holy redemption. Yet, if the abilities to love, and perhaps moreso, to receive love, were not in themselves Her blessings… what else was the purpose of this Earth?

Crowley’s mind had waxed too poetic, and he found himself toe to toe with the staircase leading to Aziraphale’s chambers before he was ready. He hardly remembered himself after, well, remembering  _ so much _ of himself, and he felt the strain of atrophied cosmic muscle as he reached out to feel for a presence in the flat. There was none, neither angelic nor human. He climbed the first step. He wouldn’t invade Aziraphale’s privacy. He didn’t know where his friend had gone, and he could return any moment. He climbed to the landing and reached out again. Definitely empty. Still-raw fingertips stroked the warm wood of the door. Crowley wondered if he would feel any disturbance if something untoward had occurred. What if Aziraphale had been in trouble with his own lot? What if he had left a message, a sign? 

There was nothing for it; Crowley had to enter the apartment. The snap of his fingers resonated against the metal door handle, and he slipped inside quickly, locking the door manually behind him. He did not know whether the trace of demonic activity would bear a detectable signature, and he feared Aziraphale might avoid the place if it felt too strongly of a Hellish presence. 

The main room would be immaculate, if not for the six or seven months of dust that’d collected over everything. Crowley’s tread was light on the carpet as he examined the side table by the settee. Last he had seen it, half-empty wine bottles covered the surface. He dipped his forefinger into the dust, rubbing it with his thumb as though that might give him some clue as to what had transpired to keep the angel away. A quick scan of the floor at his feet revealed that the chair to his right—the one where Aziraphale had begun the night and ended the heart-wrenching division that had existed between them—had not been moved in many moons. 

Crowley wandered into the back room, where there sat a bed set he was sure was rarely used and kept primarily for appearances. At the foot of the bed, an ancient trunk sat gaping, tempting him to peer inside. Given Aziraphale’s prolonged absence, it only seemed wise to have a little rifle through. The contents did not seem to have been ransacked, despite their disarranged state. They bore more an expression of intentional displacement, and Crowley breathed easier as he recognized the hand of his dearest love at work there. 

Piles of books, mismatched tea cups, and a carved and painted wooden duck surfaced as Crowley dug carefully. Nothing nefarious, nothing valuable. Nothing here would tell of Aziraphale’s whereabouts, or when he might return. (Not  _ whether _ ; Crowley could not bear to entertain that possibility after everything he’d been through.) As he reached an arm to close the trunk on his hopes at learning anything about his missing love, a single folded page caught his eye. It had stuck to the inside wall of the case, nearly blending with the wood for being aged with time and mishandling. Crowley peeled it back delicately, afraid it might rip if it had been moisture damaged. It came willingly, almost as if it had been waiting for him. 

_ I would that rain could cleanse unholy souls _

_ For then, my love, a deluge I would send _

_ Deliver thee from where thoust walk on coals _

_ And each fair foot, I’d kneel and kiss to mend _

_ I would that ravens sang as sweet as doves _

_ For then, my dear, the world would know your voice _

_ Enable thee to tell me of thine loves _

_ And each long day when thou still had a choice _

_ I would that Aphrodite walked the Earth _

_ For then, my heart, a blessing thou wouldst get _

_ Receive the kingdom offered at my hearth _

_ And live the years I’m planning for us yet _

_ Oh Crowley, sweet, a thousand lifetimes mine _

_ I’d give to only feel my hand in thine _

The final words were nearly impossible to read for the tears flowing heavy and warm from Crowley’s eyes. From the scent and weight of the parchment, this was far older than his invitation to Hamlet. This… this was centuries. His knees came up to meet his forehead as he leaned against the trunk, and his leg coverings grew damp with the force of his sobbing. He was loved. Crowley, unforgivable and eternally damned, was loved by the most beautiful, the most fierce and loyal and clever creature in all the world. He knew he would have done anything for Aziraphale, but to find the sentiment was mutual was more than he had ever genuinely let himself hope. It was as if a freedom were overcoming his very soul—no amount of torture, neither Time nor Hellfire, could destroy this love.

He would remain here, be it hours or years, committing each of these blessed words to memory until Aziraphale returned. Because he was certain now that he  _ would _ return. For him. Crowley would wait as long as it took. And when the waiting was over… they would be together.


	9. Aziraphale

‘Aziraphale! Long time no see!’ 

The chipper voice boomed in the hush of the barn where Aziraphale huddled away from a rainstorm. He had passed a week here. They were fast, muddled days since the adrenaline of Fulda had worn off, hidden in the loft behind hay stores, contemplating how to restore Crowley from the grip of a world he did not understand. The nights were easier—he warned foxes off the chicken coop and buried his fear beneath the horizon. Now, this, and interruption for which he had no tolerance.

‘What do you want, Gabriel?’ He was world weary and bearing a fathomless guilt. Nothing the archangel said could possibly stir him to action.

‘The demon Crowley. We believe he is back in London.’

Nothing except that.

‘Crowley? M-  _ The _ demon Crowley?’

‘He’s your primary adversary, is he not? We thought it might be beneficial if you-’

‘How do you know?’ Aziraphale’s narrowed eyes were more accusatory than inquiring. He flexed his right hand, determined not to reach for the feather pressed against his skin beneath his tunic. 

‘That he’s your archenemy, if you’ll pardon the dramatics? Given the frequency of his appearance in your reports, we simply assumed-’

‘How do you know it’s  _ him? _ ’

‘Ah, that. Well,’ Gabriel pursed his lips and shrugged, which Aziraphale would clearly not be accepting as an answer. ‘He, uh… we’ve been in contact. With some other demons. And they mentioned having seen him in the city. Yer… yesterday.’

Aziraphale’s gaze drifted to the torrential rain hammering the earth. Hope was stirring in his chest, and he wasn’t certain he liked it. It felt like a dangerous thing, an unsheathed knife stored beside his heart. 

‘Are you ordering me back?’

‘No. Well, yes… I- Have you been living here?’ Gabriel scoffed, apparently taking in his surroundings for the first time. His face wrinkled in disgust. Aziraphale could not care less; he was growing anxious, afraid that they were wrong and Crowley had not returned. Afraid that they were right, and he would have to face what he had done head-on.

‘What are my orders, Gabriel?’

‘Hm? Oh. Return to London, thwart the demon Crowley in,’ he waved vaguely at the horses, ‘whatever it is he’s doing there. Your old quarters have been preserved for you. Which,’ he sniffed the nearest horse, who bellowed in response, ‘I hope include a washing basin.’

‘And when am I expected to leave?’ Aziraphale was still addressing the rain, his hands wringing behind his back. A loud snap echoed against the wooden walls and-

‘Here you go, sunshine.’ Gabriel strode away down the London street, abandoning Aziraphale on his own doorstep. He stepped back, inhaling sharply. He looked down the dusky road, but Gabriel’s miracle must have cleared it, for there was a stunning and eerie lack of human presence. He closed his eyes, altering his clothing to suit his new surroundings. His stomach turned at the thought of entering the rooms above, where so much damage had begun at his own sinful hands. Aziraphale swallowed the rising tide of upset in his gut and looked up. Something was wrong. Or rather, something was too right. Crowley appearing out of no place, Gabriel turning up to return him nearly into the demon’s arms… and the light. He could see it, coming from his own back room. 

Aziraphale climbed the stairs to his upper story rooms, and paused with his hand on the knob. It was cold, far colder than the evening chill of London spring. There was a trace of power there, and something else. Love. He turned the handle slowly, not knowing how he would summon a sufficient apology for his transgression, and entered without a sound. There was a muffled noise coming from the back room, and he crept toward the doorway, not wanting to startle Crowley after whatever horrors he may have been through. As he entered the room, the figure curled against his trunk lifted his face. Ragged tear stains shone on his flushed cheeks in the dim light. Crowley opened his mouth, releasing nothing more than a croak bearing a vague resemblance to the word, ‘Aziraphale.’ One trembling hand reached out; it was clutching a worn piece of parchment that Aziraphale would recognize anywhere. 

The angel fell to his knees, pressing his lips to the knuckles of Crowley’s hand.  _ I meant every word, _ he thought, as loudly as he knew how. Long fingers slid into the soft hair at the nape of his neck, and a forehead lowered to meet his own. 

‘I know, angel. I lo-’

‘What I did to you, Crowley,’ Aziraphale was sobbing suddenly, his body crumpling into Crowley’s lap. ‘What my selfishness cost! I thought you were lost forever, I thought you were doomed to-’

‘I was. Angel, I was.’

Aziraphale’s body wracked with the misery of contrition. Surprisingly strong arms wrapped around his body, holding him together. Two fiercely beating hearts pounded against one another, hammering out a language only they could understand. 

‘Angel, it wasn’t your fault,’ Crowley whispered into the scant space between them.

‘It was. Azazel… he explained. He said my grace-’

‘Azazel is a liar. He’s a demon, Aziraphale, and a much better one that I have ever been. Did he know who you were?  _ What _ you were?’

‘Y-yes, of course. It was the only way I-’

‘There you have it, then,’ Crowley answered, wiping the wetness from Aziraphale’s eyes. ‘Don’t you worry one more moment about it. I’m here now.’

‘But what you must have gone through, locked away in the-’

‘I’m here now.’ Crowley’s voice was more firm than he had ever heard it, and it stopped his tears in their tracks. ‘Did you know I created the stars? Not all of them, but… these. The ones you can see from Earth.’ He tipped Aziraphale’s chin up, as if they could see the universe through the ceiling, and followed his gaze. 

‘You never mentioned who you were before.’ Aziraphale was calming, and he could not help but feel curious. It felt safe here, as though the half year that had passed was all a terrible dream. 

‘She gave me light, and I used it to weave hope through the darkness. In my new darkness, Aziraphale, my hope—my light—was the memory of you.’ Crowley was looking at him now, eyes flicking over his features, searching for a sign. Aziraphale would give him more than that. 

Crowley’s lips were as soft as he remembered, and he tasted of wind and longing. Aziraphale would be gentle, so gentle, not knowing what scars, inside or out, his lover might now bear. He kissed a plump lower lip, sucking it lightly between his own but not biting, not willing to cause any pain. His hands slipped into long red hair, carding it back to tilt that beautiful neck toward himself. Aziraphale pressed his mouth to Crowley’s jaw, inhaling the deepening scent of cinnamon spice as he trailed his lips beneath an ear that always heard him, and let out the tip of his desperate tongue to lick a stripe down the length of his neck. 

Crowley sighed deeply, and Aziraphale wondered when he had last been shown tenderness, when he had been made to feel like the precious thing he was. As his hand trailed down Crowley’s chest, velvet and brocade disappeared beneath his fingertips, leaving miles of pale sinewy skin to touch. A broad dusting of red hair across Crowley’s chest was far too tempting, and Aziraphale buried his face in it, dropping kisses as he went. When his mouth met with one peaked nipple, he pressed his tongue flat, laving circles until the breath above him went ragged with want. 

Crowley’s hands tugged at Aziraphale’s hair, silently pleading for him to drop his ministrations lower. The scent of vanilla wafted into the air as Aziraphale sucked roses of pink onto the taut flesh of Crowley’s stomach, before wrapping his tongue around the head of a warm, pulsing cock. The moan that escaped Crowley’s throat was lust and relief, and Aziraphale’s hand flew to his own miraculously unclothed cock, stroking himself in time to the suck-circle-slide of his mouth. 

‘Angel… oh, for fucks’ sake, angel! I need… I want… to fuck you. Please… please let me fuck you!’

Aziraphale hollowed his cheeks and sucked slowly, drawing out every last moment of their shared pleasure until he released Crowley with an obscenely wet popping sound. He wasted no time reveling in it, straddling Crowley where he still sat propped against the antique trunk and sinking himself down onto his waiting cock in one steady movement. 

Crowley growled, throwing an arm around Aziraphale’s waist and flipping him onto his back. A canopy of red hair fell around both their faces as Crowley pulled out, then sank back in slowly. Aziraphale fought to keep his eyes open as he savoured every inch of the gorgeous heat pushing into his body. Crowley pulled back faster, sank in harder, until—despite all Aziraphale’s efforts to the contrary—he set up a punishing pace that drove both of them to the brink of orgasm in a matter of minutes. Aziraphale forced his eyes to stay focused on Crowley’s, who returned his stare with blasphemous adoration. 

There was no question of intention left between them, no words needed. This love, this all-consuming soul-deep love, was the highest order blessing Aziraphale could imagine. Just as they reached their climax, he felt his being divorcing from his corporation, and suddenly, he was surrounded by-

Stars. There were hundreds of them, millions, thousands of millions, and yet their glory was diminished by the figure at his side. 

‘Did you… are these…?’

‘Yes,’ Crowley replied, pride radiating off him in waves. ‘Aziraphale, meet my children.’

‘Why are we-’

‘Give me your hand.’

Aziraphale did as he was bid. Crowley placed his palm against the back of his hand and interlaced their fingers. 

‘This child…’ He lifted their hands then, until Aziraphale’s palm was facing empty space. In a flash, it was empty no longer. There were two stars where, a moment ago, there had been none. They pulsed around one another, circling the same center of darkness, which felt more full than any Aziraphale had ever known.

‘This child,’ Crowley repeated, ‘is ours.’

Aziraphale gasped, and he was on the floor, gazing up at a stunned Crowley. 

‘How did you-’

‘I… I don’t…’

And that was when Aziraphale saw it, just beyond Crowley’s vision. He could feel his own halo sparking with it, electric lights circling their heads, pulsing around the space between their bodies. Golden stardust, locked in an ineffable dance, like whispers in the dark. 


	10. Heaven (Epilogue)

Michael slammed the report on the tabletop. 

‘What in the name of all that is holy was _that?!_ ’

‘Your guess is as good as mine.’ Gabriel sighed heavily. ‘And if what I had to listen to down there was _holy,_ I might have to resign.’

‘You’re all idiotz. For beingz zuppozedly dezigned on the prinziples of love, you don’t zeem to know much about how it workzzz.’

‘Then enlighten us, demon!’ Uriel snapped. ‘Or did you lozzzze those memories when you f-’

‘Enough!’ Michael’s fist came down on top of the file, setting the whole table vibrating. ‘Does anyone in this whole bloody realm know why those two traitors didn’t discorporate?’

‘Trust.’

A warm wind swept through the room, silencing the angels, present and former alike. 

‘Their love was deep enough,’ came a voice like a babbling brook, ‘that they trusted one another with their lives. They knew what might happen, but they chose to put their faith in love. In one another. In _me._ ’

And then voice was gone. A light chill ran through the room, and everyone gathered at the table remained stunned into silence. 

‘Fuck.’

All, that is, except Gabriel.


End file.
